


The Earth Shook

by LiinHaglund



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, One Shot, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4725137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiinHaglund/pseuds/LiinHaglund





	The Earth Shook

At first he thought it was an earthquake and didn't react to the small tremors going through the building. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea. Ran went to the stairwell instead of continuing to wait for the elevator. It was just an eight story building. He wanted to get away from all the sit-quietly-and-wait that would go on for hours yet. As long as he was back in his father's office before the meeting ended it would be fine, he knew that from experience.

Security guards rushed past him in the stairwell when he was almost all the way down. He had his visitor's badge visible, so they just spared him a glance. He wondered what the problem was, he counted at least six going up in pairs. Hopefully no one was trapped in the elevators.

He was at the ground floor when a big tremor shook the building, but it didn't feel like an earthquake this time. He opened the door out to the lobby and quickly ducked back to the stairwell when he saw a security guard being shot. Where did people even get a hold of guns in Japan?

After taking a few deep breaths to calm down he quietly sneaked down to the next level, the underground garage, and contemplated getting inside his family's car. He had been learning how to drive for a while now and had a key. There was no safety in that, unless he drove off, and then what would his parents and sister use to get home?

He should go out on the street, in the open. There was probably a crowd gathering, he could fade into the masses. Before he had taken three steps away from the door it burst open. He spun around to find himself at the wrong end of a gun.

“He's just a kid,” the man said in seemingly fluent Japanese to his companion and lowered it. Despite the firearm he looked respectable enough, they both did. Foreigners, dressed in neat suits. Businessmen or some such, perhaps. The one who hadn't just pointed a gun at him looked the most foreign, and he was injured.

A third man came through, gun aimed at them. Ran shouted to the man who had aimed at him first. Not sure why, not really, except for the fact that he had lowered his gun when he had seen that Ran was no threat.

The gunshot was loud, nothing like in the movies. It smelled too, like sulfur. There was a sweet metallic smell as well, and Ran tried to not think about the fact that it was blood that smelled that way.

“Tenacious little bastards,” the injured man muttered in Japanese. The third, now dead, man had a halo of blood that was growing bigger and bigger.

“Sir, do you need to go to a hospital?” Ran asked, more out of reflex and a burning need to not look at the dead body. He'd been brought up to be nice to people.

“He does,” the other one said, with the gun still in his hand he pointed Ran to a black car. “Help him to that car, please. It's unlocked.”

Ran did as told because he liked his odds better with the unarmed man. Despite looking thin the man was heavy and it took a bit of effort to help him move.

“Don't worry,” the injured foreigner smiled, “he's just touchy about bombs going off when we don't expect them to. There's a first aid kit in the trunk.”

He fetched the box and sat in the back with the foreigner. One of the gashes on his forehead was bleeding liberally, but Ran knew from experience that some parts of the body bled more even if it wasn't fatal. He had been scared half to death that time he had gotten a cut on a finger that just bled forever.

“I'm not a nurse, but I'll try to stop the blood,” he said softly.

“Thank you, kind stranger,” the man said with a touch of drama to his voice. “Could you close the doors and put the heat on?”

Ran shut the doors and leaned over the front seat and turned the ignition on to be able to use the car's control panel. “Why leave the keys in? I know it's Japan, but...”

“Had to rush in,” the man said. He had a calculating look in his eyes. Ran didn't like it, but started to disinfect and bandage the wound on the man's forehead anyway. It was probably just business anyway, they might not want him to know what they were working on.

“I won't pry,” Ran said quietly. He was amazed at how calm he was. His hands were steady, and he pushed everything out of his mind to keep it from catching up to him. He noticed a wound on the man's thigh that looked bad, even if he had no idea what had caused it. Too wide for a knife, but not a scrape either.

“Sorry, this will really sting,” he said before putting disinfectant on it. The man hissed, but showed no other discomfort.

The foreigner with the gun jumped in the driver's seat and told Ran to go with them, that they would drop him off. Ran buckled up quickly, the man was in a hurry to get to the hospital it seemed. Or to get away before the police questioned him about his gun.

He saw the explosion before he heard the boom, the building going down like a pile of ash or a sand castle. They had barely made it out and he gasped at the pain he felt, even though he wasn't truly aware of everything.

Ran sat quietly in the car the whole ride. He had his metro card, he could easily get back home anyway. He pointedly didn't think about his family, the pain would barely allow him to breathe as it was.

 

* * *

 

There was a doctor waiting when the men got to their destination. Ran was led away by the taller of the two foreigners while the injured one got treated. He wasn't keen on being alone with the one who had pointed a gun at him. The one who had killed another man right before his eyes.

“Did you work there? Visit a friend?” the man asked.

“What were you doing there armed with a gun?” Ran asked back. He wouldn't think about his family, not yet. It wasn't safe to get emotional here. He wasn't sure he could survive if the pain got worse.

“I'm always armed, that's not the point.”

“This isn't America. You can't just walk around with a gun in Japan!”

The man gave him a look, the same one teachers gave him when he argued too much. “What were you doing there?” the man tried again, a hard edge creeping into his voice. “Tell me.”

Ran reminded himself that the man still had his gun, and he hadn't been shot yet. “My family came with my father. He had to come in on his day off for a little while.” He couldn't make a sound from how tight his throat was, and even though he was barely aware of anything happening he knew he was crying. His eyes were wet and he could feel the tears run down his cheeks. The man was quiet. “They're dead, aren't they?” Ran managed to whisper after a long pause.

“I don't know, but I'm assuming so. No one got out of the building through the lobby, and we were the only car to go out the garage,” the man was using a softer voice now.

To say that the man surprised him by holding him then would be an understatement. Ran was only more surprised by how his body responded with latching on to the man, he certainly wasn't about to trust the guy.

Except he had kind of saved his life?

“I should go home,” Ran mumbled. “I have school tomorrow.”

“No,” the man said hesitantly after a long pause. “Make a call to the police and ask about your family.”

 

 


End file.
